I really do appreciate all the wonderful words of blacksmithing wisdom you all have shared. I admit I was lazy in researching information for this part of the story. But far beyond my hopes, I Forge Iron members have supplied me with the information necessary to convey what is needed in this chapter. I am eternally grateful.
If anyone would like to read what I have written for integrity in the blacksmithing realm, it would be ever so helpful. In creating a historical fiction I try to keep things real and connected to the time, place, and subject. Even though this is a small part of the story, I want it to be accurate.
Wth much thanks, Becky
In Painted Faces, Zita Lea Wilder runs a professional organization business in Emporia, Kansas. Today she and her employees, Chet and Sandy Carlson are outside of Olpe, Kansas evaluating a hoarder’s farm with Chuck Anderson the local auctioneer. They have finished with the house and barn.
Painted Face
The whole group headed to the three-wall structure attached to the building. The sunbeams peeked through holes where the roof was missing parts of its corrugated metal. Zita Lea thought, “The Kansas wind sure had a hay day with this place.”
Inside they found a central rafter, where iron hooks perched sporadically like sleeping turtle doves. From one of the hooks hung a few links of rusty chain dangling a cobweb covered pulley. A stove pipe and hood sagged at an awkward angle from their roost. Below the hood rest a collapsed brick forge sitting upon a decaying sandstone foundation.
Next to the forge were twisted points and pieces of scrap overflowing from a time beaten barrel. Chet looked into a corroded galvanized washtub with sides pocked from someone’s shotgun blasts. He pointed to the bottomless tub. “Looks like sitting under the leaky roof has rusted this thing clear through.”
In the center of the room, Chuck examined the rust covered anvil sitting on a hardened tree stump stand. He tried to lift it but soon gave up. “It’s amazing nobody’s hauled this thing away. They bring a close to a thousand at most sales.”
Along the far wall, precariously leaned a pile of toppled sculptures made from implement parts. Chet went over and knocked off several years’ worth of windblown soil from one. “Hey, this could be the man made of tin from the movie about the wizard.”
Zita Lea scanned the dirt floor and spied something wedged in it. After kicking it with the toe of her work boot, she used a stray metal spike and pried it from the hardened earth. The oxidized painted piece was not much bigger than her hand. When she rubbed it clean with spit and her shirttail, she found the flesh-tone object portrayed the careful details of the right half of a face. “Odd, it’s part of a face! What do you think it went to?”